Television and radio broadcasting is regulated in the United States and abroad due to the limited frequencies available for transmission. As a result, any person or entity that wishes to operate a television or radio broadcast station in the United States must apply for and receive a government-issued license in order to reserve a transmission frequency for its broadcast signal. Broadcast licenses granted by the FCC provide a geographic scope or area that limits the permissible range of each station's broadcast signal. The broadcast station must configure its broadcast signal to limit the broadcast signal range to the geographic scope of the license. A recipient's tuner must typically be within the geographic scope of the broadcaster's license to properly receive the over-air broadcast signal from the local broadcast station.
From a technology standpoint, cable providers can retransmit local broadcast programming over a physical line such as coaxial cable having a known geographic reach or area. This method of controlling distribution of a cable signal enables the cable provider to meet the geographic restrictions on local broadcast programming. Satellite providers are able to retransmit broadcast signals to dedicated receivers pre-programmed with a particular customer billing address. In this way, technology is used to limit customer access to program within geographic restrictions in place on such local broadcast programming.
Today, consumers often receive digital content via the Internet rather than using tuners to receive over-air signals. Content and programming information such as national or local news, weather, financial information, sports information and entertainment programming can be obtained by visiting any number of websites. Songs and movies are commonly ordered and either downloaded or streamed over the Internet to a recipient's computer for playing or viewing. Currently a local broadcast station does not have available technology to supply over-air broadcasts over the Internet and restrict such Internet viewing to a limited geographic area. This is because Internet access is not geographically limiting like over-air reception, and therefore, an Internet user physically located in the local broadcast station's area of license cannot be distinguished from a recipient physically located outside such area.